TROY >> The City Council’s third hearing regarding previous demolitions revealed that both the contractor and subcontractor for the projects at the former King Fuels site didn’t stick closely to the recommendations made in an engineering report they were provided.

A mixture of parties who were involved with either the demolitions at the former King Fuels site or those of several King Street buildings appeared before the City Council Wednesday night.

Before the start of the hearing, City Council President Rodney Wiltshire said he had hoped to wrap up the questioning of those outside Mayor Lou Rosamilia’s administration regarding the King Fuels site.

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John Tirino, formerly of Provincial Contracting Services, a company which he is currently in litigation with, talked about his role in the demolition of the Benzol building on the former King Fuels site.

Tirino said the demolition was a controlled one, which differed from testimony given by both former City Engineer Russ Reeves and Ryan Preston, the latter of whom was hired by the city’s Local Development Corporation.

Danny DiTonno of DiTonno & Sons, the company PCS hired to perform the Benzol demolition, backed Tirino’s claim, saying said the building came down exactly as they planned, not the way Preston’s engineering report recommended.

“Me and my brother went to the site and came up with a way to take it down and took it down,” DiTonno said. “Usually we take it down the way we think to take it down. That’s the way we do it.”

DiTonno added there have never been any injuries or other catastrophic events during one of his company’s demolition projects.

Tirino said he had seen the report prepared by Preston and was aware of Reeves’ concerns regarding the potential twisting of the building during its demolition.

Preston’s report contained several suggestions that would ensure a safe demolition. Tirino said they had actually cut the steel on the structure and had removed all the bricks. A drop zone was then identified and the structure was taken down.

He explained that if they followed all of Preston’s proposed suggestions in taking down the building, it would have cost more than the $44,000 paid to perform the demolition.

“It would have been over $200,000 to follow this,” Tirino said, pointing to the report. “We did not cut any corners.”

DiTonno said his company wasn’t given any suggestions on how to take down the building before he and his brother devised a plan and gave a dollar figure to PCS for the job.

Local attorney Don Boyajian, owner of the buildings on King Street, including the one currently occupied by Bombers Burrito Bar, and former City of Troy Mayor Harry Tutunjian also testified Wednesday.

Boyajian said he had purchased the row of buildings, which were previously owned by his uncle, in December 2009, with the goal of developing them to make both his family and the city proud.

Even though he had been cited city’s Code Enforcement Department numerous times for safety issues regarding the building, Boyajian didn’t want to tear the buildings down until he had a plan.

Tutunjian backed up Boyajian’s statement when he said the two had met regarding developing the block.

Tutunjian also said Boyajian inquired whether the buildings could be taken down through emergency demolition, which Tutunjian said was something he wouldn’t have done.

“There’s no upside for us to demolish a building to make something happen,” said Tutunjian, adding that he would not have used incident command to help a project move forward either. “I would frown upon doing it. It would be collusion in my opinion in order to have to save some money.”

During his testimony, Boyajian said the first time he had ever heard of the term “incident command” was when he met with Corporation Counsel Ian Silverman following the demolition of the King Street buildings.

Boyajian also said he didn’t believe Rosamilia ever told Reeves and his assistant, Barb Tozzi, a recounting of the events on the day the buildings were taken down.

Reeves and Tozzi both said in the days following the demolition they had contacted on-call engineer Jack Healy to do a structural engineering review of the wall of the adjacent buildings, but were stopped as Rosamilia said the owner of the building wouldn’t allow them to do so.

“I doubt very much Mayor Rosamilia would say such a thing,” Boyajian said. “Either [Tozzi] got her facts wrong or it was miscommunication. Clearly there’s a lot of miscommunication going on [in the city].”